The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is mulling a trial project that would allow scooter riders to turn off their engines when waiting at traffic lights for more than 100 seconds in a bid to reduce emissions and associated health risks.
EPA officials yesterday said that studies have shown that scooter riders who wait at traffic lights for 60 seconds or 90 seconds are exposed to four times and nine times more carbon monoxide respectively than a 30-second wait.
A similar exposure pattern could be applied to PM2.5 — fine particulate matter measuring 25 micrometers in diameter or less — which vehicles of all kinds, including scooters and cars, produce, and which accounts for 20 percent of the nation’s total PM2.5 pollution, Department of Air Quality and Noise Control Director-General Chen Hsien-heng (陳咸亨) said.
The EPA in 2012 drafted regulations that limited the time a vehicle could spend idling to no more than three minutes at a time, with those who fail to turn off their engine subject to a fine.
Now it is considering a trial program at major road sections where wait times are more than 100 seconds, Chen said.
However, scooter riders who do not turn off their engines would not be fined, Chen said.
Waiting at traffic lights and getting stuck in traffic jams account for 30 percent of a scooter driver’s travel time, and a total of 2,800 tonnes of carbon monoxide and 35,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide could be reduced if a national regulation is enacted that requires scooter engines to be turned off while waiting in traffic, Chen said.
However, People First Party Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) criticized the proposal, saying the agency is “bullying” scooter riders and it should target trucks and tour buses first because they emit 20 times to 30 times more pollutants than scooters.
“Scooters were selected because scooter drivers are more exposed to vehicle exhaust fumesthan car drivers and because cars have a more negative impact on traffic if they fail to restart,” Chen said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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